Upgraded 8600M GS driver zipping!!!

I have updated my Nvidia 8600M GS card with the latest drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ and with modded INF supplied. My Vista Gaming Graphics index jumped from 4.7 to 5.1! And now I can see a very perceptible change in performance, earlier it was fast and now it is super fast, especially video performance in media center and video editing are now zipping!

Apart from the improved index, I also notice that the new driver update has assigned 1791 MB to the shared graphics memory (from the earlier 767 MB). I think this is fine because I have 4GB RAM and this way I will be able to effectively make use of the excess system RAM.

Here are my system scores after driver upgrade:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz 5.1
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 4.8
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS 4.6
Gaming graphics 2047 MB Total available graphics memory 5.1
Primary hard disk 33GB Free (83GB Total) 4.9

To believe, you have to see the graphics performance and lightning fast response that I got playing Half Life 2, Halo and Airstrike thunder (lot of fireworks!)

 

wow, thats cool, but WEI isn't really the greatest benchmark tool.

 

So which tool/site do you suggest for measuring gaming performance??

I would like to match this score with mainstream gaming notebooks.

9500T is simply amazing, I would bet this has the best combination of features currently in the market.

 

3DMark06.

I agree the dv9500t is a great notebook. I disagree that it has the best combo in the market. It is very upsetting that the Pavilion's don't carry the 8600m GT, and I'm sure HP has lost some market-share to Dell because of it.

 

I don't know how much better GT wrt GS, but from what I experienced with the GS card, I could play Halo, Half Life 2, Airstrike Thunder at max settings with zipping speed and with lightning fast response.

I wonder in which scenarios a GT card shows where it is better than GS card. I have played the same games on my friends notebook with the GT card and I couldn't notice a difference and neither could he on mine!

 

Halo is 6 years old. HL2 is 3 years old. Try some newer games - Oblivion, Bioshock, soon Crysis. The GT scores 25% better in 3DMark and is detectably faster while using a FPS counter like FRAPS.

 

I just purchased a DV9500t and the only thing I was disappointed about was that HP doesn't offer a better video card on such a great laptop. I looked around at other laptops because I wanted a better video card and in the end I still went with the HP because the features I got with it, the price, and its looks outweighed the fact that it doesn't offer a better video card. I just can't believe that HP doesn't offer better video cards, even in the HDX, because they have some amazing laptops.

 

Before upgrade the "view software for my base score online" didn't use to show Bioshock, now it is showing. Does that mean that the upgraded driver (update date 8/17/2007) unlocked the potential that made the GS up its score??


From what I saw with my own eyes, I would like to see how this card will perform on 3D Mark scores after the driver update

 

I have tried to upgrade to 163.44 and did not succeed as Vista Aero has disappeared and while trying to play AVCHD files the BLUE screen appears with error and followed by RESTART. Any thoughts, guys?

 

I didn't encounter any problems installing... I just downloaded the drivers file from here for Vista 64 bit named 16344_vista64.exe, executed and it prompted to create a folder where it placed the driver files, then I replaced the INF file with the modded NIF file from the same page.

Then I used the "have disk" method by using the update driver option from device driver page.

Aero is working at zipping speed, that is what I meant by "perceptible improvement"

 

Did you make sure you downloaded the 32-bit drivers for Vista? Also, remember these are Beta drivers, so there might be some issues with them. I would report it to Nvidia, so they can help to improve the drivers. I wish I could help more but nothing else comes to mind with your situation, because I don't know too much about Vista, and the drivers are in beta testing. One thing you could try though is uninstalling the drivers, reboot the computer and install the new drivers, and then reboot the computer again.

 

I did reinstall them twice, thinking something might go wrong...But no luck. Rolled back to HP-supplied driver and all fine. Not sure they were for Vista... Is there a separate page for Vista drivers?
Well, I think I have mistaken with XP and Vista. Reinstalling now.

Updated: Sorry, guys. I have reinstalled Vista drivers and everything is PERFECT! Thanks for the link!

 

Like you stated at the end of your post suland, there are different downloads for Vista and XP. Let us know what happened after you tried the Vista drivers.

 

This is what happened!!! My Graphics WEI went UP to 5.1 from 4.6

Thanks a lot! Driver seem to work PERFECT!

 

Yeah!!

Happy that my post helped someone like me

 

Lol, will you guys please stop talking about the WEI score? It's completely inaccurate, and the only thing it can predict is if you have a computer or not.

 

But even visually you can see the BOOST in performance after drivers upgrade. I tried some graphics-heavy games and they are looking perfect after upgrade. WEI is just a comparisson thing and yes, it shows that system became more efficient.

 

The only thing the WEI shows is that the driver worked better running the WEI, (and that you have a computer). The visual BOOST you refer to is the driver working better, but use FRAPS to see how much better, or 3DMark to record the difference. Just please lay off the WEI.

 

lol, I believe what I see, I am currently getting Bioshock from my friend to see how it goes at higher settings... scores doesn't mean anything to me unless I see for myself what effect it has...

 

I agree 100%

Did you try any game before and after? I believe that the score that 8600M GS got before this driver (date 8/17/2007) need to be revised after the new driver.

I was really amazed at the light weight feeling that I am getting. Actions like min/maximizing window, alt tab or window flipping in Aero are happening as if I am running XP and not Vista Aero.

 

Lol, from the way you phrased this, I just have to say: Congrads!!! Your $1000 laptop with a $200 dedicated GPU can run Windows!!!

 

What is your problem mate they are simply saying that they see a BOOST visually and performance wise while using the drivers and they are recommending it to other fellow users. And for you information some good graphics lag when running flip3d so I dont know why you are giving these guys such a hard time. Granted there are no 3d mark scores, but really stop with the WEI and the running windows stuff.

 

More observations:

Nvidia control panel changed completely, you won't see the large icon display, instead a explorer type display where the tree list of tasks appears in the left pane and the setting for that task appear on the right pane. Also option for the control panel disappears from the drop down list that you get when you right click on the desktop but you can still access it from "display properties"

Rotate display doesn't work, control panel crashes when you try to rotate the display. How to report this to Nvidia?

Before upgrading I saw BSOD twice in Windows Media center, the issue was random, rare and not reproducible. I think the issue is corrected, I am not seeing any more BSODs after the upgrade, though I still keep my fingers crossed.

Also as said before shared memory increased from 767 to 1791 MB, may be good thing or bad depending on how much RAM you have.

 

You should try the new 156.55 drivers from laptopvideo2go.com
second post

 

Thanks a ton tianh!

I could find the version that you quoted 156.55 at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14836

Indeed it is released on 8/23/2007 so it should be later to 163.44 rel. on 8/17/2007, but why did they use a numbering which seems to say it is older?

 

visu2k7 did you notice any difference when you switched to 156.55? or is it pretty much the same?

Alex

 

avillabon, may be it made a difference but it is not significant.

The issue of Nvidia control panel, rotate option still persists, the panel doesn't crash but rotate doesn't happen!

But this is a minor issue considering the light weight lightning performance I am getting from my baby

 

Nvidia has reworked the numbering system on their drivers the 156.55 is indeed more recent than the 163.44


Glad I could help!

 

You make a very good point.
I have the NVIDIA Geforce Go 6150 graphics card and wish it were the 8300m GT.
Most of the off-the shelf HP notebooks dont have the 8600 GT which is sad.

 

Very true about HP not offering better video cards in their laptops. I looked around for awhile for a laptop that fit my price range and was decent for gaming. The only downfall on my dv9500t was the video card, but everything else the laptop had in it outweighed the middle video card. If HP would offer better performance video cards they would have some amazing laptops.

 

hey guys i finally got my new dv9500 and just performed a clean install. The performance boost from the clean install itself was amazing, incredible!! But now that im ready to upgrade the drivers to version 156.55 like you guys posted i cant seem to find it on the laptopvideo2go site.. im running vista but 32 bit not 64. Which one should i get?

Alex

 

the latest for vista 32 bit is 163.44 on the laptopvideo2go site

 

I tried installin the updated drivers, i didn't see much of a diff, only thing is WEI went up from 4.6 to 4.7, maybe cause i only have 3gb ram instead of 4. oh well. Im not using the latest ones though since there's no Modded INF, was using the one visu2k7 provided.

 

the amount of ram does not matter
ive got 2 gb and my score went up from 4.9 to 5.1
use the drivers from laptopvideo2go

 

once i download the driver. where can i find the modded inf? or is it the same file we are talking about?

will it be hard to reverse this and go back to the regular drivers if necesary?

Alex

 

the download for the modded inf should be at the top of the page on laptopvideo2go, just drag the modded inf into the folder with the extracted driver files
just create a system restore point before installing the drivers and you should be able to revert back if needed

 

I'm usin the drivers from laptop2go, the ones posted on the 1st page.
the ones posted on the 2nd page are more updated, but there's no modded INF ready. it says to use pieter's INF, but i can't seem to find that newhere.

the link again:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14836

 

My post isn't directly related to drivers for the 8600m GS, but since most of the people posting have a dv9500t with vista you might be able to help me out.

Here are my specs:
Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4Ghz
4GB RAM
Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Nvidia GeForce 8600m GS

I try to run Bioshock and the game keeps freezing after the initial cut scene where the main character is in the airplane smoking a cigarette, as soon as the Bioshock logo comes up after that scene the screen goes black and I have to force it to quit through the task manager. I've looked on their technical support forums and tried many things, but none have worked. So anyways, my thought pattern is that people here on this thread have pretty much the same laptop as me, and I was wondering if anybody else has had a problem running Bioshock on their dvd9500t Vista machine. Also, if you did have a problem with Bioshock, but was able to fix it and play please tell me how. I've heard some people just updated the graphics drivers, but I figured if somebody here has had the same problem and fixed it, it should work for me as well.

Thanks in advance!

 

Heres a link to the newest driver and modded inf for the 8600m GS. It is located on the same site, and it includes the modded inf.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15050

 

which driver would you say is best for vista 32 bit? I upgraded to 163.44 but the changes were not that impressive. How can i check how much is my shared video memory? (i have 4 gb of ram)

Alex

 

with wei your score will be higher with 2gb than 3 because of dual channel mode... i took the wifes and ran it with 2gb and saw 4.4 score removed one 1gb stick and put in a 2gb stick and the score went DOWN to 3.7... so it seems at least to wei the dual channel makes a large difference

 

ok another little question, since Drive cleaner pro doesn't work in vista, what do you guys do to completely remove nvidia's driver?

 

yeah.. i've been wondering myself... how can i uninstall a driver to try another? or should i just intall ontop of the old one?

Alex

 

Hi Alex Congats on getting a machine! You can uninstall the driver in the devices section. And then just install new ones. Otherwise you can update driver but don't choose the autofunction and make it manually.

 

thanks suland!

im not sure i understand but ill give it a try!! by the way, i used your guide to install the 4gb of ram, worked perfect! thanks!

Alex

 

Downloaded the driver but cannot find the correct inf file anywhere. Used a different one from laptopvideo2go.com, but for a way earlier version. My score goes down from 5.3 to 5.2, and the shared memory capacity goes from 1500ish to 1023mb.

Seems like a bad upgrade to me, but the old driver kept resetting. Can anyone supply a better inf file for me, since I suspect this is the culprit.

 

I didn't really mind the 8600m GS. It wasn't a bad card at all.